Perfect Match

In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is traumatized by a sexual assault, Nina and her husband, Caleb, a quiet and methodical stone mason, are shattered, ripped apart by an enraging sense of helplessness in the face of a futile justice system that Nina knows all too well.

Sing You Home

Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter’s life. And it’s music that brings her back to love. When fertility issues lead to a divorce, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. As an unexpected friendship with a woman slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people - even those she loves and trusts most - don’t want that to happen.

Second Glance: A Novel

An intricate tale of love, haunting memories, and renewal, Second Glance begins in current-day Vermont, where an old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it's a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there's nothing spiritual about the property.

The Tenth Circle: A Novel

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father Daniel's life - a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family - and herself - seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever?

Small Great Things: A Novel

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than 20 years' experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she's been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don't want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders, or does she intervene?

The Pact

The Hartes and the Golds have been neighbors for 18 years and are very close. So when Chris and Emily's friendship reaches the next level, nobody is surprised. Then one night, the hospital calls. Seventeen-year-old Emily is dead - shot in the head by a gun Chris took from his father's cabinet. One bullet remains in the chamber, and Chris tells of his suicide pact with Emily. But the police have questions, and soon Chris is on trial for murder.

Salem Falls

A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past: Once a teacher at a girls' prep school, Jack St. Bride was destroyed when a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation. Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine, and Addie finds this unassuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls, a quartet of teenage girls harbor dark secrets - and they maliciously target Jack with a shattering allegation.

Songs of the Humpback Whale

The powerful debut novel from New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult, Songs of the Humpback Whale is a moving story of love and family told through the eyes of five people: Jane Jones, her daughter Rebecca, and three very different men in their lives. After a watershed moment in their marriage, Jane leaves Oliver, her renowned marine biologist husband, and begins a journey across the country with Rebecca in search of understanding about her troubled past.

Handle with Care

From mega-selling author Jodi Picoult comes an engrossing tale of medical morality and parental responsibility. Charlotte O'Keefe's daughter is born with osteogenesis imperfecta and will endure endless broken bones. Facing unthinkable medical costs, Charlotte considers a troubling solution. If she goes to court and says she would have terminated the pregnancy had she known of her daughter's condition, she might get enough money for a lifetime of medical expenses.

Plain Truth

The discovery of a dead infant in an Amish barn shakes Lancaster County to its core. But the police investigation leads to a more shocking disclosure: Circumstantial evidence suggests that 18-year-old Katie Fisher, an unmarried Amish woman believed to be the newborn's mother, took the child's life. When Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big-city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, to defend Katie, two cultures collide - and for the first time in her high-profile career, Ellie faces a system of justice very different from her own.

House Rules

One of America’s most popular authors, Jodi Picoult has earned a reputation for crafting riveting, topical fiction. In House Rules she examines how being different can have dire consequences. Teenager Jacob Hunt has Asperger’s syndrome. A forensic science wizard, he follows his scanner to show up at crime scenes and give law enforcement officials his advice.

Picture Perfect

To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape - a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour.

Vanishing Acts

Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her widowed father, Andrew, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can't recall. And then a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret that changes the world as she knows it.

Change of Heart: A Novel

One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart. Now her life is a waiting game. Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice. In short, waiting for a miracle to happen. For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises. The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world. In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him.

Nineteen Minutes: A Novel

Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens - until the day its complacency is shattered by an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened before her very own eyes - or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show - destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Keeping Faith

Mariah has just discovered her husband Colin is having his second affair. During the divorce process, their seven-year-old daughter, Faith, meets an imaginary friend who may be God. Amidst much controversy, Colin sues for custody of Faith, compelling Mariah to find her inner strength.

Mercy

Police chief Cameron McDonald has lived in idyllic Wheelock, Massachusetts for most of his life, as has his beloved wife Allie. Their comfortable lives are thrown into tumult, however, when Cam's distant cousin Jamie arrives in town along with his wife's dead body. Jamie admits to the murder - a mercy killing to end the pain caused by a ravaging cancer. And now Cam is torn by his oath to uphold justice and his family obligations as chief of the Scottish McDonald clan.

Jodi Picoult's poignant number one New York Times best-selling novels about family and love tackle hot-button issues head on. In The Storyteller, Sage Singer befriends Josef Weber, a beloved Little League coach and retired teacher. But then Josef asks Sage for a favor she never could have imagined - to kill him. After Josef reveals the heinous act he committed, Sage feels he may deserve that fate. But would his death be murder or justice?

Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts. Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest.

Harvesting the Heart

Written with astonishing clarity and evocative detail, convincing in its depiction of emotional pain, love, and vulnerability, Harvesting the Heart recalls the writing of Alice Hoffman and Sue Miller. Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who left when she was five. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own.

My Sister's Keeper: A Novel

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13 she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate - a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is.

Off the Page

Samantha van Leer is a sophomore at Vassar College majoring in psychology with a minor in human development. She has four dogs: Alvin, Harvey, Dudley, and Oliver - for whom the prince in this story is named.

A story of romance, adventure, and humor, Between the Lines features high-schooler and social outsider Delilah, who discovers a charming fairy tale in the school library and can’t resist turning to it again and again. But one day she finds the book has hidden depths—and that the story’s handsome prince has somehow stepped from the page into her very own world.

The Life We Bury

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Publisher's Summary

In the wild, when a wolf knows its time is over, when it knows it is of no more use to its pack, it may sometimes choose to slip away. Dying apart from its family, it stays proud and true to its nature. Humans aren’t so lucky. Luke Warren has spent his life researching wolves. He has written about them, studied their habits intensively, and even lived with them for extended periods of time. In many ways, Luke understands wolf dynamics better than those of his own family. His wife, Georgie, has left him, finally giving up on their lonely marriage. His son, Edward, twenty-four, fled six years ago, leaving behind a shattered relationship with his father. Edward understands that some things cannot be fixed, though memories of his domineering father still inflict pain. Then comes a frantic phone call: Luke has been gravely injured in a car accident with Edward’s younger sister, Cara. Suddenly everything changes: Edward must return home to face the father he walked out on at age eighteen. He and Cara have to decide their father’s fate together. Though there’s no easy answer, questions abound: What secrets have Edward and his sister kept from each other? What hidden motives inform their need to let their father die . . . or to try to keep him alive? What would Luke himself want? How can any family member make such a decision in the face of guilt, pain, or both? And most importantly, to what extent have they all forgotten what a wolf never forgets: that each member of a pack needs the others, and that sometimes survival means sacrifice?

Ive read all of Picoults books. Some are better than others. This one is better than average. Sort of My Sisters Keeper meets Dances With Wolves.

I dislike reviews that are, really, a synopsis of the plot but as the first reviewer I feel obligated to give a Non Spoiler brief of the story. Man with family becomes engrossed with wolves. Leaves family to fend for itself and devotes his early adulthood to research.Wife resents, divorces wolf man. Older gay son splits for 6 years and younger daughter resents this move, gets bratty, acts out. Dad has auto accident with daughter in car and has TBI. Son has authority to make life decisions about pulling dads plug. Daughter resents.

As is typical for Picoult, each chapter is written from a different point of view, and the narrators vary in their ability. The dad, Luke, tells a good story. I didn't care for mom, Georgie, particularly. Cara and Edward, the children are pretty good.

I wasn't bothered by the change in voice from chapter to chapter as I know that's Picoults style though others may find it difficult to deal with.

It wasn't wonderful, but it was a thoughtfully written book about family situations none of us ever want to be a part of. Worth the credit but may appeal to women more than men.

The Wolf facts were fairly interesting, however this is the same Picoult formula. There is the social conundrum, the courtroom drama, the torn family, etc. This one was just more 'plain' than others have been. 'House Rules' was better. The story was slightly boring and the characters other than Luke and Edward were annoying.

Would you be willing to try another book from Jodi Picoult? Why or why not?

I read her books every time they come out. I will probably keep reading them.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

There are several narrators for the different parts. This was perfect for a Picoult book! Very nice! It's one thing to read the different parts by the different characters, but listening to the different narrators, male or female for their respective parts, adds something to the story. I loved the narration, it was impeccable.

Could you see Lone Wolf being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?

If made into a movie- definitely Edward (Robert Pattinson) from Twilight would play Edward. No other character/actor came to my mind as strong as he did. I would put Gerard Butler with a scruffy beard for Luke maybe..but some might not agree.

Any additional comments?

If you are looking for a good read from Picoult, I would recommend 'Nineteen Minutes' or 'The Tenth Circle.' This new book is decent, but familiar and predictable. The narration however, was wonderful.

I like the different narrators theme. The story, however, dragged on & on. Though the wolf trivia was interesting, it was depressing how a man could throw away his family and then listen to his kids whine for hours about how they got screwed by their father. Why would that be entertaining for anyone? I couldn't take anymore and skipped to the end.

If there was a dictionary entry for "formula writing" this book could be used for the illustration. I already knew that Jodi Picoult's books all follow the same formula: a moral and/or environmental issue, family drama and then courtroom drama. This book had all of those plus some interesting information about wolves that was hopefully based on fact and research.

Even so, the plot was both preposterous and predictable. Definitely not one of her best books, not even remotely convincing on any level.

But it worked great as a "palate cleanser" between good books. As was discussed recently on the great podcast, "Books on the Night Table" -- sometimes we just need a book we have low expectations for to read after we finish a truly remarkable book to kind of cleanse the palate before tackling another really good book to avoid comparisons.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I just couldn't find anything at all to like about this book. Picoult says early in this book..???Scars are just a treasure map for pain you've buried too deep to remember.??? ......really?I always make myself finish a book, but this one was painful right to the end; I'll check for scars. Not one of the characters were likable, not even the wolves. Oh and did I mention that the narration was annoying? So for me this book was a huge disappointment, obviously others disagree.

This book has that familiar Picoult branding - moral dilemmas, family conflict over medical and legal issues, and shifting perspectives amongst the primary players. But this time Picoult brings in pack behavior, and its relationships to human family, in the form of a protagonist who has immersed himself in several wolf packs, living with them in the wild over several years, and indeed preferring the wolf-life over his flesh and blood family.There is also an unusual plot device - the main protagonist is on life support, unable to speak for himself, although we hear his story from the past. (Here is a slight homage to Hemmings' "The Descendants" where the wife is similarly on artificial life support yet is able to take her place as a main character.)

Or, to put it in general terms, sometimes my regular life seems to exist just between Jodi Picoiult books. I am giving this book five stars all around, as I think it's one of Picoult's best, on a par with "My Sister's Keeper" and "House Rules" - my two previous personal favorites. The author deals with love and loss in a very nuanced way, not at all heavy-handed, and she has much to say about the tangled web of conflicting emotion contained in what it means to be a family.

Narration was perfect on all counts. Those who've read my reviews know that I prefer calm and steady readings over dramatic ups and downs, and have a distinct aversion to the portrayal of histrionics in an audiobook. Save the crying for the movies!

I did have to laugh at two of the marginal characters' names - "Zirconia Notch", attorney for the daughter. Really? I guess the name is to indicate a hippie heritage, but the not-so-veiled reference to Franconia Notch (NH) created an out-of-context caricature. Then there is "Helen Bedd" (sp?) - hell in bed?? - just couldn't get past that one. Evidently Picoult is also a punster. There is also a generous supply of bad jokes throughout the book - something for the reader to laugh at or groan, and with which to entertain the 8-11 yr old set. (As I admit to doing.)

Anyway, to wrap this up, this book is Picoult's best, and I, as always, am waiting for the next.

Had stopped reading this author some years ago as the topics and style became repetitive. Now, however, with her compelling story telling through the voices of her characters, Picoult has chosen a topic which applies to adults more than to children, and it is refreshing and thought provoking.

This is the typical Jodi Picoult book, about moral dilemmas & family conflict, but so much more interesting about the wolf packs. Being an animal lover, I learned so much about wolves in this book & loved it. This is my favorite Jodi Picoult book!

I love Jodi Picoult, but I did not like this book. I actually only made it half way through it. The basic plot was interesting, but the characters flat and dull. And, the same scene just kept repeating over and over. Maybe it could have made a good short story, but there just wasn't enough material for a full length novel. I hope Picoult's next book is up to par with all of her others.

I've really enjoyed the other three books of Picoults I've read. This one was a bit laborious story-wise. The usual twists weren't very remarkable in this one. However, I thoroughly enjoyed each of the narrators. They made the book worth finishing.